Earthquakes near Xining through history

It was also the deadliest: NOAA records 40,912 deaths for it. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 6 here, back to 1125. NOAA records deaths in 3 of the events here, 51,038 in all. NOAA’s record here begins on August 30, 1125 with an earthquake (Gansu Province).

• May 22, 1927Earthquake · M 7.731 km SSW of Wuwei, China · 40,912 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• August 30, 1125Earthquake · M 7.0 (est.)Gansu ProvinceNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Xining when it began within 100 km of its centre, or 200 km for an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more. Damage can reach further.
• USGS counts here start at magnitude 6: the catalogue’s smaller quakes thin out going back, where few instruments listened.
• NOAA lists significant events only: earthquakes that killed, did about $1 million of damage, reached magnitude 7.5 or intensity X, or raised a tsunami, and eruptions and tsunamis by like measures. Magnitudes before 1900 are its estimates from written accounts.
• Deaths are NOAA’s total for each event, wherever people died, its tsunami and fires included. A tsunami counts the dead its runup records give for this place: NOAA’s total for a tsunami includes its source quake’s.
• A tsunami from elsewhere counts where one of its runups killed or rose a metre or more.
• Counted to October 19, 2026, as is the map. The last 30 days ask USGS again.

How the layers work, where their data comes from and what they can’t tell you: Earthquakes, live, The world through history